We want to run payroll in-house on freee — what do we ask a shakai hoken roumushi for?

In short: switching payroll to in-house processing on freee requires no licence. What trips companies up is not the operation of the software but the initial design of the settings, and the judgement calls that come up each month. 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 provides support for building this in-house setup, included in the retainer fee. The point is that outsourcing is not the only way to "engage" a shakai hoken roumushi.

This page is for owners and back-office staff of small companies who want to process payroll themselves on freee rather than outsource it — or who want to bring payroll back in-house from a current provider. Market rates for outsourcing are in What does it cost to have a shakai hoken roumushi run your payroll?, and the line between software and licence in We've brought in freee HR. So what does a retained shakai hoken roumushi actually do?. This article is about what the in-house option involves.

If we go in-house, what stays with us?

The calculation itself is the software's job. Three things stay with you.

• Entry — finalising attendance, reflecting hires, departures and changes of dependants
• Checking — when a result differs from last month, telling a correct difference from a wrong one
• Judgement — handling the irregular cases

The third is the tricky one. From which month's pay do you start deducting social insurance premiums for a new hire? How do you handle the departure month's proration and premiums? What happens to premiums during leave? These situations do not arise every month — but when they do, the software only asks you how to set it, never what is right. This is where the questions of companies that went in-house pile up.

Where does in-house payroll go wrong?

In our experience of switchovers, the stumbles come before the operations.

Stumbling point	What becomes a problem
Designing pay items and allowances	An allowance's nature decides whether it enters the base for overtime premiums or counts as remuneration for social insurance. Get the initial setting wrong and the same error is copied every month
The basis for deductions	Deductions with no statutory basis — company housing charges, social-club dues — require a labor-management agreement on wage deductions (proviso to Article 24, paragraph 1 of the Labor Standards Act). A deduction with no agreement will still go through as a software setting
Cut-off and payday	The relationship between the days from cut-off to payment and the timing of monthly-change and standard-remuneration determinations
Reflecting revisions	From which month's pay to reflect revised social and employment insurance premium rates

None of these is answered by looking up how to operate the software. The setting you can do yourselves; grounding it takes labour-law knowledge — in-house support is the work of filling exactly that gap.

What does "in-house support" get us?

At Yotsuba the scope is as follows, and all of it is included in the retainer fee.

1. Designing the initial settings — sorting out pay items, allowances and deductions and grounding each one (including identifying which deductions need a wage-deduction agreement, and putting it in place)
2. Walking alongside during the transition — for the first few months we reconcile the results at each close and trace any differences with you
3. Monthly consultation — judgement calls when hires, departures, leave or bonuses come up. No limit on the number of times
4. Checks at revision time — confirming the months when premium rates change are reflected correctly

We also draw the line clearly. The fine detail of screen operations belongs to freee's official help and support. What we support is the design of the settings and the labour-law judgement. And after you go in-house, if you ask us to file procedures on your behalf — acquisition notifications, the standard remuneration base notification — the fees in the fee schedule are charged per filing (you can also file them yourselves electronically — the line-drawing).

Outsourcing or in-house — which suits us?

	Outsourcing	In-house (freee + support)
Monthly cost	Retainer + 1,100 yen per person per month (tax incl.)	Retainer only (+ the freee subscription; the amount depends on the plan, so check the official site)
Work inside the company	Handing over attendance data	Entry, checking and the close, all in-house
Suits	Companies that cannot or do not want to staff someone on payroll	Companies with a back-office person who want the monthly cycle completed internally
Switching	—	You can switch mid-stream, and switch back from in-house to outsourcing

The retainer is the same either way. The design lets you switch when circumstances change — a back-office hire, a departure. You are welcome to start from the sorting-out stage while still undecided.

Why does the retainer alone cover it?

The trick, revealed, is a consequence of the fee design. Yotsuba's retainer is the price of labour consultation; it does not bundle filings or payroll. And in-house support — consulting on the design of the settings, consulting on each month's judgement calls — is precisely what the Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant Act defines as "responding to consultation, or providing guidance" (Article 2, paragraph 1, item 3). For Yotsuba, in-house support is one scene of the consultation we already provide every month under the retainer, not a separate service.

At offices that bundle filings and payroll into the retainer, the more a client goes in-house, the thinner the grounds for the retainer become. Yotsuba separates the price of consultation from the price of procedures, so recommending in-house does not cut our own throat — which is why it can sit inside the retainer.

What can 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 do?

四葉社会保険労務士事務所, in Kohinata, Bunkyo City, supports — within the retainer agreement — the build-up to in-house payroll on freee: designing the initial settings, putting the wage-deduction agreement in place, walking alongside during the transition, and consulting on each month's close and at revision time. If you prefer outsourcing, we take it on at 1,100 yen per employee per month (tax incl.). Consultation is free of charge. Bring your current provider's fee schedule and a freee quote, and we will start from comparing the totals. Fees as a whole are in the fee schedule, and the steps to engagement in How consultation and contracting work.

Whom to consult

The year-end tax adjustment is tax territory, the work of a tax accountant (whose job is freee's year-end adjustment feature?). Bookkeeping and closing on freee accounting also go to a tax accountant. Residence-status applications and subsidies are handled by 四葉行政書士事務所 (a separate business from this office, engaged under a separate contract). In every case, no referral fees change hands.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Can we consult before we have even adopted freee?
A. Yes. Starting from the design — your cut-off, headcount and allowance structure — is in fact the shortest route. Which software to choose is your company's decision, and please check freee's official site and help pages for current features and pricing.

Q. If we go in-house, is there anything left to ask a shakai hoken roumushi for?
A. Yes. The monthly calculation moves in-house, but the judgement — whether a procedure is needed and by when — and the procedures themselves remain. You can have us file them, or file them yourselves electronically. And the support for building the in-house setup is itself part of what the retainer buys.

Q. Will you teach us how to operate freee?
A. The fine detail of screen operations belongs to freee's official help and support. What we support sits before and after that — the design of pay items and deductions, the legal basis for deductions (the labor-management agreement), and the judgement calls at the close and at revision time. Splitting the roles is what makes the switch reliable.

Q. If we switch to in-house, what happens to the outsourcing fee?
A. From the month you stop outsourcing, the 1,100 yen per person no longer arises. The retainer, being the price of consultation, does not change. Monthly consultation and revision-time checks after going in-house are included in the retainer.

Sources for this article

• 社会保険労務士法 (Act No. 89 of 1968), Article 2, paragraph 1, item 3 (consultation and guidance on labour management and other labour matters) and Article 27 — current text confirmed on e-Gov on 14 August 2026. Note that what Article 27 reserves to shakai hoken roumushi is the work in Article 2, paragraph 1, items 1 through 2; payroll itself and consultation/guidance (item 3) are not exclusive work
• 労働基準法 (Act No. 49 of 1947), proviso to Article 24, paragraph 1 (deductions from wages require a written labor-management agreement) — current text confirmed on e-Gov the same day
• freee HR's features, coverage and pricing are revised over time. This article does not go into feature detail; please check freee's official site and help pages for current information (the electronic-filing coverage is set out in a separate article, based on materials published as of August 2026)
• 四葉社会保険労務士事務所's fees are published in the fee schedule. All amounts include tax

This article is general information. Judgments that fit your particular circumstances are made by a qualified professional after a meeting. Written by Joji Uramatsu (Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant), Gyoseishoshi (Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialist), Registered Real Estate Transaction Specialist).